The Thinking Traveller Reviews 1,191

The Villa was as expected and the caretakers were extremely nice and efficient . We had a lovely holiday in a great place.

Wonderful from start to finish
Konstantina And Jami made our holiday.
Nothing was too much trouble everything was planned perfectly and without fault.
We are already planning on coming back with them next year

The whole experience of booking through The Thinking Traveller was excellent, from initially viewing and reserving the house to the concierge service they provided before and during our stay.

Great experience, great welcome. House totally conform to the description and pictures.

The conciergerie was not at the level expected, lots of mistakes were done with transfers, rates etc…we also had issues with breakfast timing and deliveries. When you rent a villa like this you need a service at a way better level.

We had a very pleasant time. However the people in charge of cleaning the house were not nice at all. Finally we had not enough towels at the pool

Amazing communication. The only villa company to ever use!

We used the Thinking Traveller as we wanted to take the risk and work out of planning and going on holiday. This was a huge mistake.
They claim to only work with the best villas, will find you the perfect area and have unrivaled local knowledge - in our experience this is completely false.

Do your own research don't trust these people and book a better villa in a better location for half the price on air BnB

We stayed at Casa Fernandez in Puglia

The villa itself was very basic and lacking some very basic amenities (including hot water for half our stay and all water for half a day or so)

The area itself was even worse, loud neighbors, no good local shops and no good nearby restaurants

Lastly the local knowledge was laughable, only excuse was maybe there were no good recommendations locally!

The Villa is located near Ugento. There is little to do in the local area and it felt very budget, think £300 per week holiday on the costa del sol. The biggest issue was lack of good shops lacking basic things like orange juice. When we ended up exploring further afield - Ostuni and Lecce the shops were much better. Ostuni and the coast from Poligano a Mare to Monopoli to Otranto on the North is so much better. We ended up spending most of our time here but it meant a daily round trip drive of around 3-4 hours which was pretty exhausting. The exact area of the villa was very strange, quite run down and some of the neighbors were very noisy quite late into the night. We did try going to a couple of places for lunch nearby, one was abandoned.... really you have to drive to Galipoli which is around a 90 minute round trip!

We did ask for recommendations and ended up one of the more local beach clubs for two days but it was grim. Plastic furniture in the restaurant, horrible deck chairs and no towels, just really low rent. The beach clubs and restaurants on the northern coast are so much better. We really lost faith in the local recommendations after this, the best beach club we found in the local area called Le Cinque Vele was not on the Thinking Traveller’ list....

You really had to try to get much out of the team as well. Generally when we stay at an air bnb the host leaves a list of places to go to, this is the best local supermarket, butcher, bakery, beach club, restaurant etc. - none of this from the thinking traveler you have to ask for everything they wont do anything pro-actively

The Villa itself looks good in pictures but once you get there its really terrible. Its tiny. The furniture is all incredibly low quality:

Rickety uncomfortable beds, no storage in any of the rooms, no wardrobes or drawers, very small kitchen, no baking sheets, (we had to get some to cook for our kids) uncomfortable small sofa in the living room which again is really small. Outdoor furniture was very limited and terrible quality, there was a kind of sofa but it was again rickety and uncomfortable, so really nowhere to sit or lounge in the evening to read a book etc.Sun loungers were really cheap and rickety.
Electrics were also a big issue, for some reason most plugs around the house wouldnt take a normal adaptor you could only use a Euro to USB plug in them. Strangely enough the only place you could plug in a normal adaptor was in the bathrooms?!
Hot water was an issue for the first week or so, lukewarm showers at best or just cold. It’s clearly 32 degrees outside so not disastrous but it is still nice to have a hot shower. After 5 or 6 visits they managed to get this working.
All of the water stopped working on our 4th or 5th day so nothing coming out of the taps, toilets wouldn't flush etc. we couldn't really leave so sat around all morning until it was fixed, by this point we had realized nothing decent locally so were planning to go up to Otranto but given its such a long way by the time the water was back on we didnt have time for the trip so really ruined our day.

The villa was in a really strange location and some slightly weird nearby buildings, one set of neighbors were really loud most nights.

On the positive side the pool was lovely and the kids liked playing in it, the BBQ area was also good and there was a good supply of wood. But on the whole it is probably the worst villa we have stayed in.

We did really lose it when the water stopped working and asked to leave. The Thinking Traveller were pretty unhelpful and the manager was pretty rude saying how pleased she was that it only took 5 hours to get the water working again! We were due to spend 3 weeks at the villa but came home after 2 weeks as I was due to be working in the final week and the villa really wasn't fit for purpose for this.

Finally when we got to the airport the car hire company they booked the car through proceeded to claim the hire car had been damaged which was completely false, we await the bill from them. Thinking Traveller again completely useless despite booking through them.

We have enjoyed Thinking Traveller villas for the last four years. They are always of a very high standard and are in beautiful settings. The only problem is having to leave!
The Thinking Traveller staff are amazing. They are responsive and well informed. You can always speak to someone who has visited the properties you are considering so can provide valuable insights.
This summer we stayed at I Bruzzi in Corsica. Stunning location, wonderful pool and contemporary and well equipped villa with thoughtful and welcoming staff.

Beautiful house. On hot days, the living room and kitchen lack air conditioning. The pool is very nice, but it's difficult to keep the water clean due to the high temperatures.

The villa was lovely and no complaints regarding the property. We asked little of Thinking Traveller, but they were not helpful with recommendations and charged close to double local rates for additional services. On the leaving day staff were around at 7.30am and we felt rushed out.

We rented a villa near Noto at the end of July for a week. The villa was really beautiful and had wonderful views and, as before with the Thinking Traveller, all was good and should have been 5*….. however we did have a number of fairly substantial issues which arose in the first couple of days. These would have made it a one * holiday but the Thinking Traveller staff did everything they could to resolve the issues which were were satisfactorily dealt with.
Thank you for another lovely week’s holiday.

Well chosen property. Excellent and very friendly service. We will be back!

From meeting Jami our concierge at the start of our two week stay, to Vaso our beautiful chef, the villa, the view, the convenience, the pool, Claudis at the local taverna, Daniella at the boat hire and Corfu in general, we could not have asked for a better holiday for us and our guests. The Thinking Traveller made it all worthwhile. Thank you.

We stayed at two houses and the first house was wonderful. The second was disappointing. It looked amazing in the photos but in real life, it was not well maintained, or cleaned and a lot of things did not work well or at all.

Dears,
I just wanted to extend a heartfelt thank you for the fantastic experience we had renting the house through your agency. Everything was smooth and well-organized from start to finish.

The house itself exceeded our expectations – it was clean, comfortable, and perfectly suited to our needs. The location was ideal, and we truly appreciated the thoughtful touches that made our stay even more enjoyable.

Your team was professional, responsive, and friendly throughout the process, which made everything stress-free and enjoyable. We’ll definitely be recommending your services to friends and family, and we look forward to booking with you again in the future!

The outstanding care we were given by everyone at the villa, Dorina and her team, Lily, Theoni and Maria. We were so well taken care of in every way.

Excellent!

The Villa CASA Rosemary — greatly exceeded our expectations. One of the best places we have stayed at and have no hesitation returning to stay again.
We were lucky enough to meet the owners on arrival warm, welcoming with a genuine concern that our stay be a good one.
Anastasia Thinking Traveller representative extremely helpful and stayed in touch to ensure all was well.

Great fast service. No problems.